Big thanks goes to Tattooedman who let me play in his game, even knowing who I am. ;~)On top of that, thanks for helping me edit the story and bounce ideas off of you.

I'd also like to thank the players in the Albright Institute for helping make such a fun game.Special thanks goes to all the players kind enough to let me use their characters.You guys have been great sports about all of this.

I know this isn't a perfect story, or even a great story, but it is the first short story I've ever done from start to finish.It's been an interesting ride getting here, but it's nice to finally see it done.

Thanks for all the kind words folks.I know there are a lot of flaws in the story, for example I didn't bother to go into details on a lot of things that had happened, or why certain things went the way they did.

Hopefully it doesn't detract too much from the story.

I also ended up cutting out entire subplots. Originally Richard was supposed to have a run in with the boys of H.A.D.E.S., not to mention I wanted to do some other run ins with other characters... but the story was getting a bit long to begin with, and it would be a little hard to explain how Richard is managing to run into everybody he ever knew, or everybody of importance to the story... by accident.

Making matters worse most of those Interludes weren't supposed to be in the story, I just kept writing more.

And as H&H said, one of the big problems was that Richard doesn't show much growth over the story. To be fair, the story takes place over a few hours, but I think he'd have to step it up to a more heroic standard if I did another story of this length.

...

Which I probably won't any time soon.

Good heavens, I just looked back to see when I started writing this. It was last year! A little under, by a handful of days.

I think H&H has the right idea. Short stories.

Still it was fun.

Now I just need to do a few things to make this story a little better.

For starters I need to do a little character glossery for the start of this story to help people who have no idea A) What the Albright Institute is B) Who the Albright kids are and C) What the status quo is supposed to be.

Since some readers won't even know who Richard is ;~)

Shock wrote:Well that was unexpected

Couldn't ask before, but what was unexpected?I know I threw in a few curve balls there, curious to hear which one actually surprised you.

Arkrite wrote:Big thanks goes to Tattooedman who let me play in his game, even knowing who I am. ;~)

Yeah, a guy that comes up with & plays some pretty awesome & interesting characters that makes it a lot of fun for me to GM a game for....

But seriously, like I've said from the beginning of you writing this - it was a good story overall & I'm glad to see you finish it and get it all posted for everyone else to read. Though I do have to admit it was nice having first read of everything.....

Arkrite wrote:And for the rest of you out there, if you liked that you should check out the following stories which take place in the same shared world. They're pretty darn good.

Thanks for the hype. I wish I could finish the Alliance stuff but that table top group unfortunately won't ever gather together again around a table as members have since moved out of state and lost contact with the rest of us.....

I have been working on a couple other writing ideas but I'm going to try doing what you did with this story - getting it all written out before starting to post it. And that's in addition to the story I've already got started and have taken ....... a lot longer than I care to try and figure out, or admit, to get finished.

But anyways, congrats on this story. It was a good read and I enjoyed it a lot and have gotten a few ideas for some things to use in the Albright game (not sure if that would be a comfort to you, or the other PCs or not).

And how's that for embaressing.There is supposed to be a line between Curt and Graham about how Curt needs to talk to Graham about the Beekeeper... Must have forgot to drop that in.

The Beekeeper is one of ClassDunce's personal favorites and he kind of passed on the bug (pardon the pun) to me. Couldn't help but put in the original when I had the chance, though the new version is a take on one of CD's character concepts.Kind of a Batman Beyond take.

Keisha was working with a group of superheroes with light based super powers to fight off the Terminus Invasion in England.

Terminus portals opened up all over the planet, Freedom City is just a focus point for Omega because A) it has a high percentage of extremely powerful super beings and B) People from there keep ruining his plans.

Also I think Keshia's too smart to let something this important be reliant on Richard of all people ;~)

The Freedom League was likewise busy dealing with another portal, though I never did decide where on the planet.

Arkrite wrote:Keisha was working with a group of superheroes with light based super powers to fight off the Terminus Invasion in England.

Terminus portals opened up all over the planet, Freedom City is just a focus point for Omega because A) it has a high percentage of extremely powerful super beings and B) People from there keep ruining his plans.

Also I think Keshia's too smart to let something this important be reliant on Richard of all people ;~)

The Freedom League was likewise busy dealing with another portal, though I never did decide where on the planet.

Heh. She might not have had a choice for a variety of reasons. If Richard is the new Centurion, Keisha would have sent a message to his younger self. He's not Diamond, the newbe hero at that point, but an experienced hero in his own right.

And even as Diamond, Richard tends to be the sanest one of the group and he comes up with the best plans. Keisha's no slouch, but his plans are better. I mean, in the 'present time' Graham has no confidence in himself, Sean is dealing with major issues, Mel is working on being human, Curt is concentrating on learning how to be a normal kid, Lizzy-Lin are all over the place and Keisha is still revelling in the joys of freedom and being a prankster (while smart, she wouldn't have the experience at that point to handle the info and do anything about it).

From a practical standpoint, out of all of the entire group, Richard is the best one to be able to handle that kind of information without going nuts and actually have a chance in heck of doing something about it. Even in the 'present day' with them still being in Claremont that holds true. So yeah... I can see Keisha doing something like that, given how dire situation of five years in the future would be. From what you've written, it's also entirely possible that whoever did send the message might have planted some subliminal clues in his head as well, just to stack the deck further.

If I was planning it out? I'd have sent it to Raven, or Andrea Atom, or even Langstone Albright.They have the power and resources to get things better in place. And more importantly I believe most of them have photographic memories.